By the time our next weekly hits the stands on Thursday, it will have been one year since I moved to Traverse City and started my run at the Leelanau Enterprise.
This prompted some reflection — not just of my time with this newspaper, but also in the events that led me here — as has the recent death of an elected official who I used to report on extensively.
I got my start in the journalism industry in the Upper Peninsula in 2021 near the border with Wisconsin, living in a chalet near the bottom of a ski hill on Central Time (I didn’t even know that parts of Michigan were on CDT before moving there).
After a solid year there, I felt like I turned over every rock and discovered every secret the area had to offer. I wanted to move and work somewhere new and felt ready to tackle harder issues in my coverage and try to reach a bigger audience.
I got my chance when I was hired by a former classmate from Wayne State University to work for her small online publication in downtown Flint. Following a very difficult two months in summer 2022 where that chalet burned down due to electrical issues in my housemate’s room (which I’ve mentioned in an earlier column) and my first employer shut down its in-house printing press due to staffing issues and transitioning from a daily to a weekly publication, I made it to Flint and covered my first government meeting.
This first meeting at Flint City Hall was exhilarating to someone who had up to this point only covered local government in sleepy small towns — these people were passionately arguing about what they believed in! — the honeymoon period was over quickly. I ended up leaving the publication after just a few months for two reasons: disagreements with management, and a council member named Eric Mays.
Mays was a man of extremes, right down to his appearance. He was rail thin, taller than his other councilmembers, speaking in seemingly the deepest possible basso. He cared greatly about his constituents, as he served Flint’s first ward for over 10 years.
Unfortunately, Mays was also — in the words of my last boss — a bully. Mays regularly used his powerful voice to shout down his fellow councilmembers, raised fallacious Points of Order against them, insulted their appearances and intelligences, and sought to filibuster any action that he didn’t like. He was ejected from many public meetings, sometimes forcibly escorted out the doors by police. At least one YouTube video of his antics has garnered almost 800,000 views.
Watching Mays fight tooth and nail against councilmembers in ways that felt overtly personal in meetings that regularly ran over eight hours made my life miserable. Even more so because Mays grinding his many axes often didn’t seem to bring the people of Flint any closer to solutions to their problems.
And yet when I learned of Mays’ death of natural causes on Feb. 24, I couldn’t help but mourn for this remarkable man. Although I’m only three years into a hopefully much longer career, I think it’s very likely Mays will be the most larger-than-life character I ever meet and interview.
There was a man who appeared to be mentally ill in the audience of every council meeting. And while the other council members mostly ignored him, Mays could often be found sitting and talking with this man during the lulls in the council’s many long, long meetings, treating him with the respect and dignity that everyone deserves.
When two Flint boys died in a fire in 2022 — which led to lawsuits against the city over allegations of negligence by two firefighters — Mays ensured that the story wasn’t buried by calling special council meetings and publicly consoling the grieving mother. He did this despite the mayor attempting to cover up the case to avoid an election season scandal, according to the city’s former fire chief.
For all his faults, Mays was always willing to courageously stand up for what he believed in. And while I disagree with his methods, I admire that trait and hope to do the same.
